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An analysis of the Rabbit R1 APK
- hackernewds 2y agosave you a click > We didn't find a "LAM" in the APK, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening in the backend. It also doesn't mean it is happening in the backend. > rabbit is an android launcher
- jpsouth 2y agoIt seems like a pretty basic breakdown, imo. I don’t know much about Flutter or Kotlin but I was expecting a lot more detail in an article hitting the front page. Bit of a nothingburger really, given what we already know about the device. I wish them the best with their product, and hope it improves, but I don’t think it’s worth it right now if you expect to get a really good tool - it’s a gimmicky, early days product from what I gather.
- Retr0id 2y agoDoes anyone have a link to the APK, or details of their OTA update mechanism so I can pull it myself?
- KomoD 2y agoSomeone called @uwunetes shared a link on Twitter.
- ado__dev 2y ago[flagged]
- Retr0id 2y agoWhich aspect of this article exposes fraud?
- ado__dev 2y agoThe LAM stuff is a lie. It's all hard coded handlers for the included functionality. Go check out the /rabbitr1 subreddit where you'll find a bunch of security vulnerabilities and more shady shit by this company.
- GaggiX 2y agoThere was a repo that falsely claimed to have released the language action model code, when it became apparent that the "leaked" code did not actually prove any of the points made in the README the author deleted the repo. You can read Retr0id's analysis here: https://web.archive.org/web/20240424095544/https://github.com/rabbitscam/rabbitr1/issues/11 https://web.archive.org/web/20240424095544/https://github.co... EDIT: I have just realized that you were replying to Retr0id.
- Retr0id 2y agolol, I was just talking about this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40235735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40235735
- 7thpower 2y agoWhy does it matter if it is an android app? Why would they redesign the wheel? Criticism should be reserved for poor execution and hype over substance.
- jchw 2y agoWell, if there's no reason to redesign the wheel then maybe they should stop claiming that the "rabbit r1 is not an Android app" themselves. I would venture to guess the reason why this is emphasized, other than that, is that multiple reviewers made the point that it really should've just been an app.
- wlesieutre 2y ago“rabbit r1 is not an Android app” is true though. To a different degree, saying the r1 is an android app is like saying a polestar 2 is an android app. Yes, android OS and android software running on that OS is a part of it, but the device as a whole is the combination of all of its software and its hardware. A more accurate dig at it is that the main functionality rabbit r1 could be offered just as an app instead of bundled on its own hardware, which is not so true of a car.
- sroussey 2y agoCan you have an android app always running?
- fruit2020 2y agoNot sure about nowadays, but a few years ago yes. You could run a foreground(?) service which kept an icon in the righthand corner (can’t remember too well). Anyway, I had an app which kept a http server always running.
- ukuina 2y agoIf you turn off Battery Optimization, yes. Apps can even draw over and control other apps. Assuming the LAM is just an app controlling AOSP in a VM server-side, this really should have just been an app with the LAM sending touch events back to the device.
- cdme 2y agoI don't understand what this device does better than — say — any 5 year old smartphone.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI'm not really sure what modern smartphones do better than 5 year old smartphones.
- TillE 2y agoJust eyeballing Geekbench scores for iPhones, CPU/GPU/NPU are all about 3x faster, and RAM capacity has doubled. Do you need all that extra power? I dunno, but it's a pretty big difference.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoThe latest iPhones are not actually 3x faster, or even 2x faster, for many common tasks such as opening a pdf compared to a 5 year old iPhone on iOS 12. Even for unusually intense workloads, like exporting dozens of pdfs at the same time, it doesn't get anywhere close to 3x. So most of the gains are purely on paper.
- Mashimo 2y agoSatellite SOS calls and .. ehh .. number go up?
- runjake 2y agoAgreed, a device with less function that does the same thing as a smartphone, something virtually everyone has, seems like an odd business idea. There’s a reason most people do not have, nor carry a digital camera anymore.
- KTibow 2y agoIn theory, it's a better and quicker experience than pulling out your phone and using the ChatGPT app for questions and other apps for other things. In practice, the things it does worse might offset the things it does better.
- lawgimenez 2y agoAs an Android developer I don’t understand the reason behind mixing Jetpack Compose and Flutter. I’m not an expert on cross platforms, I mostly work on Compose, so if anyone wants to share.
- afavour 2y agoProbably just fast moving startup stuff. Different developers working on different features with different preferred toolsets. Can normalize it all later, right now launch is most important.
- farmerbb 2y agoThey most likely added a dependency that transitively depends on Compose, possibly for some prebuilt UI. EDIT: Another possibility is that they started out with some template app that happened to have the Compose dependencies included in the Gradle build script, and with this being a Flutter app, they had no reason to touch the Gradle script beyond just adding the Flutter dependency. Assuming the app doesn't have R8 enabled, all of Compose would remain in the APK unused.
- sdwr 2y agoWhat does gradle mean? I always thought it was a portmanteau of "cradle to grave"
- christina97 2y agoIt’s a build tool for Java, and Android then too, I guess?
- farmerbb 2y agoCorrect. Gradle is the standard build tool used for Android apps.
- jhanschoo 2y ago> Founder and CEO Hans Dockter has said that he originally wanted to name the project "Cradle". However, to make the name unique and less "diminutive" he instead chose "Gradle", taking the "G" from the use of Groovy. I expected as such, and Wikipedia confirmed it for me.
- m3kw9 2y agoThey seem to be eagerly awaiting for GPT5 API to get their LAM working. The longer they wait the easier it gets
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kemayo 2y agoThe bits of this controversy about "where's the LAM?" are strange to me. My impression from the beginning was that the "Large Action Model" was a server-side thing, and the hardware was going to be almost-entirely a way to talk to their services. Apparently this impression was far from universal.
- nkozyra 2y agoI recall the LAM being a/the (stated) reason why it couldn't "just be an app." If it's vaporware on-device it's more evidence that it could have just been an app. Perhaps there was special on-device sauce coming in a future update, but as of now it's a client making http calls.
- suyula 2y agoYou probably wouldn't want an app to be able to press buttons on another app so if that's how it works (or worked) then that seems fair enough to me.
- 1shooner 2y agoYou probably really wouldn't want it to be doing that on someone else's server, using your authentications to all your apps. Which is what it actually does (or claims to, anyway).
- bippihippi1 2y agoit's an app with extra deep data collection, would be my guess. Also it's a nice construction to get attention.
- beefnugs 2y agoYeah the whole point was supposedly you can "train it" by operating a generic "app" and it would learn so in the future other people could operate these apps via voice only. A clearly as yet non-existant feature. But would definitely require super obervation, recording, and control above standard android. Also insecure as hell. It would be super dumbo-bonkers insecure if you werent actually running these "Generic app training" on your own device, but in some cloud emulation. yikes This is as dumb as microsoft selling their next big feature of ai knowing how to control generic windows applications... that means they are going to record EVERYONES screens and actions without consent, we all know how microsoft respects users consent
- yazzku 2y agoThis product is a scam.
- pfgallagher 2y agoI turned down an interview with Rabbit. While I was looking into the company, I watched a product demo of theirs featuring the CEO who didn’t use the scroll wheel on the device (instead used the touch screen) and it seemed as if multiple features shown were not actually in a functional state. Kind of a weird tech stack, too, based on the job description.
- daghamm 2y agoDid you turn down an interview because their product was not 100% finished?
- pfgallagher 2y agoNo, more along the lines of it seemed gimmicky to me. Could easily just be an app.
- because_789 2y agoCan we as a society ease up on the use of the word ‘bespoke’ thank you so much.
- tripdout 2y ago> To use a device running AOSP, you'd need a launcher app or a significant amount of effort. What is this trying to say?
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- johnnylambada 2y agoAs an Android developer and someone who has studied the ASOP internals, I don’t see what the big deal is. If I were going to build custom hardware that has a custom ui then it makes complete sense to start with the open source version of Android. Google has spent billions inventing that wheel and you can use it for free. It has everything you need (except realtime). The natural way to build ui apps in Android is to make an apk. Doing anything else would be weirdly unnecessary.
- citizen_friend 2y agoYep. Making a feature electronic with your own OS is immediately burned by - WiFi/ip stack - 4g/5g wireless - graphics drivers That’s why pretty much everything is android. I just wish these startups would stop shoving Ubuntu server with chromium inside and at least do something like Netbsd and libcairo.
- Shawnj2 2y agoThe biggest downside I see is that 1. according to reviewers the battery life is utter garbage. Using Android probably isn’t helping that much. And 2. There is no actual purpose for this device, there’s nothing it does you can’t do better with a phone. The target market for this is presumably the same as the Playdate but any of the normal AI apps would be better for most users tbh
- lelandbatey 2y agoThe Playdate at least has games and apps, even if they are all vaguely reminiscent of simple flash games (just due to the limited capabilities). The R1, like any "AI hardware" that has no local AI, is just a bad smartphone doing a subset of things you can do with your phone.
- mostlysimilar 2y ago> The target market for this is presumably the same as the Playdate I don't think "this could be an app on my phone" works as an argument for the Playdate the way it does for the Rabbit R1. A dedicated gaming device with real buttons is better than a touchscreen any day and the constraints of the hardware make the games unusual and highly creative. It would diminish the experience considerably if it was just a mobile app. Contrast with the R1 which seems to want to be a general purpose device that just does everything worse than the supercomputer you already carry around in your pocket.
- uniquekli 2y ago[dead]